Of Life
by Pinguin1993
Summary: Back when he was a little boy, Sherlock Holmes had everything. Until one day, a girl like a feather says No. Mycroft saw it coming, of course. But Mycroft wasn't there. And then there is a man who has been light once, and Sherlock wants so badly it hurts.


_I have no idea at all where this came from. I just took a screencap of ASIP, and then doodled with it, and then there were wings and dark eyes and a small voice that said "I just want a friend". The plot bunny was soft and ruffled and quiet, and I took care of it. Judge me._

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><p><strong>OF LIFE<br>**

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><p>Back when he was a little boy, Sherlock Holmes had everything.<p>

I'm not exaggerating or overestimating his situation. I'm not trying to imply anything. I won't pass judgement either. It is simply the truth that I am stating: If there was anything in the world, anything at all, that Sherlock wanted, he'd get it. Always. No exceptions, no rules, no requirements. He wanted a book, he got it. He wanted painting equipment, he got that too. He wanted a lock-picking kit, it was on his desk the next day. He wanted ice cream on a Sunday at midnight, they woke someone to make it, whichever flavour he felt like too.

And Sherlock didn't question it. He was bright, overly bright for his young years, with eyes colourless and piercing and a brain that never ever stopped, but not once did it come to his mind that his upbringing was anything but normal. He did see other things on TV, poor people and ordinary people and all sorts of rubbish, but then Mummy always said not to take the telly too serious, so he didn't. He did ask for permission to take the TV set apart though, just to see what the insides were like. Permission was granted. He forgot about it soon after.

Mycroft, older by seven years and more experienced in what they called _the real life out there,_ wasn't too pleased with the way things were. He was critical, but passive, always watching and saving data instead of experimenting himself. One day he would control all this, and then he would make changes, but back then he only watched. He didn't object, not out loud, but he had a wider view of the world than his five-year-old brother, and he was weary.

It happened on the playgrounds, seemingly out of the blue. Of course, Mycroft had seen it coming. But Mycroft wasn't there.

"I want you to play with me", Sherlock said.

The girl was his age, a small skinny thing with dark brown pigtails and a pink princess' dress. She was perched on the highest edge of the climbing frame, seemingly at ease with her legs dangling free and her hair whipped back by the wind. He'd never been that close to the edge before, neither that far up, but seeing her up there from where he was seated in the sand below made him want to.

"No", she said. She didn't even look at him, just kept watching the world from above, like she was a queen and the lands before her were hers to rule. He felt something he hadn't encountered before, a twinge in the pit of his stomach, and took his time to puzzle over it. Whatever it was, it made him agitated and uncomfortable. Later he would learn the feeling to be envy.

"Can I come up?" He asked. That was a new sensation, asking. Exciting. Fresh. Anticipation made his legs tingle and he climbed to his feet, brushing sand off his dark trousers.

"No", she repeated. She hadn't looked at him, not once.

He stood dumbfounded. No one had ever denied him anything, and he wasn't sure if he liked it. Probably not, but the novelty of it all was good, was something to dwell on. Not now though. Later. Now he was just angry and also ashamed. He looked up at her with blazing eyes, at her pretty dress and her pigtails and her freckles and her bare sandy feet, and swallowed.

"This isn't your climbing frame. I could come up anyway", he pointed out past the nervous lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. A part of him wondered if he could cut it out and examine it. It felt funny and not entirely good, but very interesting. He didn't move though, and neither did the girl.

"Yeah", she just said. "But you're not gonna do that."

He wrinkled his nose as he thought about that and found she was right. Then he squinted up at her naked feet, way up above him, and growled. He stepped forward and put one foot on the rope ladder that went up to the first level of the construction. Then a hand. The girl still didn't fully look at him, but he saw her glance down for a fraction of a second, eyes wide with surprise. He found that it pleased him considerably to have accomplished that, and took another step up.

"See, I did it anyway, because you have no right to tell me what to do. I want you to come and play with me though, and you'd better do what I say." He put both of his stubby hands on the first platform and hoisted himself up. He didn't know what exactly was supposed to happen if she didn't succumb to him, but he was sure something would, because words had power and because it had worked with the servants before. The girl was on the next platform, only a few feet above him now. She was keeping him in her peripheral vision, and her eyes were very green and very much unlike his own. All about her was just so different, and she looked light as a feather in her dress, and she was fascinating and new and very brilliant altogether.

"No", she said and jumped down, landing in the sand in a crouch before simply walking away. He stared after her from his higher viewpoint until she was gone. He didn't feel very tall despite the height of his position. For once in his life, his mind was utterly blank.

He stood on the climbing frame for a long time before he went down and let his Nanny take him home.

Later that evening, he went to Mummy for advice. He wasn't stupid, he knew that he was only five years old and that some things were yet beyond his grasp, both physically and mentally. So he went to her for answers, and it all turned out okay afterwards. It always did, so it was a rule. He told her about the girl, and balled his small fists and was really frustrated about it all because he didn't _understand_. This was unheard of, this was _wrong._ His Mummy ruffled his hair and smiled at him and said that sometimes people weren't that easy.

Somehow this time her advice didn't help like it normally did.

He got a puppy after that talk, a cute little thing with a wiggly tail and soft fur that absolutely adored him. Of course it got to sleep in his bed, because Sherlock always got everything he wanted, and he had a wonderful time with the cold-nosed one. But deep inside of him, he knew it wasn't the same.

Back then, he wasn't convinced it ever would be.

And of course, Mycroft saw. He was only twelve, but oh did he see, and he understood. He saw the sudden aching in Sherlock's eyes, the need for something beyond his grasp, and he felt with him because he had been there too. It had worked out for him, somehow. But Sherlock was different even from him, though they were alike in so much else. Sherlock wouldn't get it on his own. So Mycroft made a decision and one night went to his brother's room to talk to him.

"You can't just buy people, Sherlock. They aren't like things, or like pets. They either come willingly, or they don't come at all."

He had made a mistake with that, but he only discovered it many years later, when their bond had shattered and they had grown apart. Because Sherlock hadn't understood, and he most certainly hadn't figured it out on his own either, just as predicted. And now he was frustrated, an energetic and wild and untamed beast made of agressive energy and loneliness, and things got out of hand.

Because Sherlock tried to prove his brother wrong, tried with all his considerable might and his even more considerable money, tried and failed and fell.

And hurt himself.

Oh yes, it seemed to work just fine, the buying people business. For the right amount of money, they were willing to do almost everything for him. And for a while Sherlock was content with that. Not _happy_, never that, but _fine_ in a way. It was almost enough, and he had fun seeing what people would do for a bill or two. Then came the drugs, swallowing his money and his life and eventually his brilliant, brilliant mind, dulled its shine and dragged him down deeper with those he called friends who really were anything but.

Mycroft would have seen that coming, too. But Mycroft wasn't there.

He finally found his way out of that one by himself. By the means of a young Detective Sergeant going by the name Gregory Lestrade, actually. After that, things got considerably better. Sherlock found people who respected him, respected his mind, which was good enough to be a change and a chance. Then he found Mrs. Hudson and with her someone who actually cared about _him_, who gave him a scarf and a home and warm words. That was also new and unheard of. It made Sherlock shy away from her at first, but she was a patient woman, and eventually he gave in. It was very strange, being liked like this. It was also very nice, so Sherlock let her do it for her own benefit as well as his, even though he made sure no one else ever saw it happen.

Mycroft did see, and envied, but it was all for the best really, so he let it go. There seemed to be no harm done, in any case.

Sherlock broke into a hospital morgue one night and met Mike Stamford, teacher at Bart's, working a late night shift in the lab. Mike was different. He respected Sherlock's mind, and he let him have his ways, but he was also mundane and ordinary and pudgy and very unlike the police. There was a girl as well, Molly-something, small and two-dimensional and predictable, with dark brown ringlets and a thin mouth. He made her fall in love with him simply because he could, and because it came with benefits. Also because she reminded him of someone, someone from his past he was supposed to have deleted long ago and who he liked to see suffer from time to time, childish as it was. She was only human, though, and so was Mike. He made Sherlock eat from time to time, and gave him access to the labs, and so it was really all perfect. That was what Sherlock told himself anyway.

Only Mike, and everyone else along with him, never forgot that Sherlock was different. Sherlock was not alike, Sherlock didn't fit in, they all said so, said it in their stares and snide remarks and whispers. They never forgot. And in extension, Sherlock never forgot about it either.

Which was why, when Mike shoved a sandwich into Sherlock's face during lunch one day, Sherlock said: "Come on. Who would want me for a flatmate?"

And Mike didn't offer enthusiastic advice and a clap on the back, but muttered something into his coffee and they let the topic slide. They both knew it was a rhetorical question, because Mike Stamford was mundane and ordinary and Sherlock was neither, and there was no one to place him with.

Until.

This, Sherlock didn't understand. That was unheard of, that was new, and he wasn't sure yet if he liked it. Probably not. He tried not to dwell on it too much, continued with his work, and it was all pretty much the same as before. Only Mike didn't eat lunch with him anymore. Only Molly found herself a boyfriend. And somehow neither mattered. Mrs. Hudson smiled a strange smile when she saw him now, and Angelo placed candles on his table, and that did matter for some reason he couldn't quite decipher.

So.

"Want to see some more?" He said that evening. It was an invitation, though not consciously given. It was _play with me. _He already knew the answer to this one, had experienced it before- _and wasn't that supposed to be deleted?_ So he stared, from his death grip position at the door, at the small form in front of him. This wasn't a girl, this was a man. His hair had a colour Sherlock couldn't place yet, that changed depending on the light, and his eyes were very much not green and very much brilliant blue. Also he didn't look feathery and light at all. He looked sunken and heavy and used, as if he had been too high already and lost his balance and fallen off.

Sherlock had fallen too. But differently. This man's wings were ruffled and torn, but Sherlock had never had any to begin with, and he felt a strange twinge in the pits of his stomach that he knew all too well by now to be envy.

The man stood, straight and sharp and proud. And Sherlock saw the playground again, saw pigtails and disdain and a queen above her kingdom and heard the stinging snap of denial before all he desired disappeared from sight, and he crumbled. He prepared for the inevitable and knew he'd never be prepared enough.

And.

"Oh God", the man called John Watson said. He was ordinary, and he was mundane, and he was dull. But he had been light once, light as a bird and free and different. And his eyes were bright and interesting and warm and his hair was impossible and he was so _proud_. Sherlock wanted to be him, wanted his skin to wear and see what it was like, because he had always had everything, and always held himself high with money and then disdain and cold loneliness, but he had never been proud of anything, and he had never had wings.

He _wanted_ so badly that it _hurt. _

But he didn't have anything to offer, nothing but half a rent a month and the mess he left behind wherever he went. He was back in the sand below the climbing frame, looking up at bare feet and freedom just out of his grasp and squinting against the sun and the pride and the ache. And he swallowed and tried to stand tall, but the man looked at him and saw.

And said "Yes".


End file.
